Chinese Espionage: Parliament

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a very important point. Obviously, the 18-month delay is unfortunate, which is why we are trying to fix the court services going forward. With regard to the point made by the noble Lord, there was the Roussev case, a piece of case law about the Official Secrets Act, which concerned the DPP, which is why additional information was taken and why the CPS has made its decision, from my understanding.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Minister of the old Foreign Office dictum that we have no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests. It is in our permanent interest not to fall out disastrously with the biggest country in the world. We have to live with the Chinese and talk to them. Both sides must realise that there are things that cannot be done but, for goodness’ sake, let us stop talking about enemies and start talking about co-operation.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I hope the noble Lord has appreciated that I have said “co-operate” twice in the last 13 minutes. He is right; however, the first duty of government is to provide for our safety and security. There is a balance here between making sure that the population of the United Kingdom is safe and secure and that your Lordships can go about their work unconcerned about the threat of espionage while, at the same time, appreciating the international reality, in a very uncertain world, that we need to make sure that we engage with our third-biggest trading partner.